


i love you (and it shouldn't be that simple but it is)

by beepbedeep



Category: Atypical (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, WHOOP WE'RE BACK, by "we" i mean more of nothing, have fun i hope you like it, this is like? 3 different ideas? stuck together into one nonsense thing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 13:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21428659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepbedeep/pseuds/beepbedeep
Summary: where Casey and Izzie complete each other and it's messy but they do it anyway!
Relationships: Casey Gardner/Izzie
Kudos: 93





	i love you (and it shouldn't be that simple but it is)

**Author's Note:**

> are you sick of me yet? hopefully not! I have more messes like this up my sleeve!

When Casey was little, Elsa would watch TV before bed. Now Casey thinks that’s probably to drown out her evil-monster-thoughts, but when she was little and scared to sleep alone, Elsa would always make room for her in the big bed, wrap her in a blanket, and stroke her hair until she fell asleep. The TV would play in the background and Casey, obviously, would pretend to fall asleep so she could listen to what was going on. 

She doesn’t remember much now, but there was these main characters who were together and really happy, until someone else came along. It’s a common trope, Casey knows that now, but one piece sticks in her head, popping up every couple of years, and even though she can’t remember the exact wording she remembers the feelings exactly – _what do you do when you’re perfectly happy with a nice person, and then meet the love of your life?_

Casey meets Izzie on a Tuesday – the first day after winter break. Her life is complete, _it should be complete_ with her sort of fine family, nice friends, supportive coach, and actually perfect boyfriend. All the boxes are checked, she doesn’t need anything else – but then this Clayton thing is dropped into her lap (except not dropped, because she’s worked her ass off to get here, and it’s not like the offer makes anything easier, because she has to leave everything that feels safe). 

Still, it’s a Tuesday in January in New England so everything is freezing and Casey is more terrified than she’d like to admit and there’s Izzie, looking like everyone else in this potentially awful school in her plaid skirt and mint green backpack except for the fact that even though she doesn’t really look like anything special, she might be the prettiest girl that Casey’s ever seen. (that’s not really what gets her though, because Casey’s seen pretty girls before and she will again, but Izzie is mean to her, without knowing anything beyond the fact that she might be a threat and it hits Casey that Izzie is just as scared as she is expect Izzie isn’t new at this school, this is her life every single day, and there is something pressing up behind her eyes that Casey can’t quite see and her stomach drops but not because she’s afraid of this girl, but because she thinks they’re going to be friends and it’s NOT going to be easy.) 

The first few months at Clayton definitely involved some bad choices, in hindsight. Nate? HUGE DICK, and pretending to be a whole new person (Newton, who gets detention, drinks vodka out of a rich girl’s locker, and promptly feels terrible for the next twenty-four hours) was fun for a while, but as Evan points out one night – the old Casey wasn’t so bad either. (turning into kind of a worse person, unsurprisingly, starts to feel bad after a while) 

But there were good things too, Casey’s decided. Clayton isn’t all gross pizza and gross people. The track team is good, and Casey’s never been pushed like this before, never been forced to improve like this. (this improvement might be about the school. It might be about Izzie. Casey is trying not to think about it too much.) So then, of course, there’s Izzie. Evan really doesn’t like her, and Casey is finding it impossible not to. So Evan judges her and Casey can’t stay away and it might be the first thing they’ve ever disagreed about – really.

(except that Casey doesn’t like to think about that, because if she wants to be around Izzie more than she cares about Evan’s opinion then that feels like it means something and she’s not ready to figure out what.) 

And she gets why he doesn’t like her, logically, because Izzie’s mean sometimes, terrible actually, but Casey is quickly realizing that Izzie isn’t some mindless shell who hates people for no reason. She’s cool, fast, funny, and a thousand other things that Casey is just beginning to discover. Plus, she smells really nice. 

Evan always brings up the getting-drunk-at-school-incident (which was a terrible idea and never gonna happen again) but when Evan asks her why it happened in the first place, Casey can never bring herself to tell him why. She can hardly even put it into words, something about how there wasn’t else much to do and how she didn’t want to ruin the tenuous peace with a formerly-mean-person, but _it was so much more than that._

Izzie’s magic. She’s brave and kind and supportive and makes Casey feel like she’s the center of the universe (except for the fact that everything in her life is beginning to orbit around Izzie, but maybe they can be twin suns and rule the cosmos together.) (Evan has never made her think about the stars) and yeah, they didn’t start out on a great foot, but the first thing Casey really noticed about Izzie wasn’t the sniping or more asshole-ish tendencies, but that, when she first walked up, before anyone opened their mouths, Casey thought that she looked lost. She’s not actually on top here, she seemed . . . alone. And Casey kinda wants to be the one to rescue her. 

(by the end of it all, Casey knows Izzie better than anyone, better than even her siblings because Izzie still has to pretend around them, she has to put on a good face, but Izzie was _awful_ to Casey, and it sucked at the time but now all it really means is that Casey sees her. All of her. Casey knows she’s not perfect, knows it bitterly well, but she’s still around. She’s still here and Izzie can’t help but be stuck by the fact that this means things are different than before.)

Casey doesn’t remember how the episode ended, or the season. But that’s ok, because she’s not sure the advice she could glean from a sit-com is really going to be applicable to her life anyway. There isn’t an easy answer when you love one person and love someone else more, but there seems to be a right answer and Casey thinks she might have managed to do that. It’s not fair to Evan, for her and Izzie to keep dancing around each other, because your girlfriend should be love with you, and maybe you should want the same things and really . . . just. Casey is in love with Izzie. Completely. It’s different than how she felt with Evan, because they’re different (Evan and Izzie, they are worlds apart) people, and in the end this is what she wanted more. That’s it. Not easy, but it feels exactly right.


End file.
